Pharmaceutical advertising is not about free speech. They are promoting their products directly to consumers instead of to the health care professionals like they used to. It costs consumers a fortune, because we are paying for it. This is not money that goes to research & development. The doctors also hate it because now patients come in demanding some drug they saw on TV whether it is appropriate for them or not. There was a reason such advertising was not permitted before. But the powerful pharmaceutical lobby got it overturned.
of course it is, i favor groups of people being able to organize any way they want, even for profit, and say almost whatever they please. this is almost the most important concept in history. it isnt my money, they can spend it how they please. again, you are assuming that you should control something that isnt yours. you do not own the pharm companies. you just want to control them. i let my doctor tell me what i need, i have no clue about how medicines work. if i came in "demanding" a certain med, he would not really care. i hire my doctor to tell me what i need. if you cannot resist the powerful urges instilled in you by advertising, my hope is that your doctor can, if he cant, fire him. again, god forbid we learn critical thinking skills and actually do what is best for us rather than buying whatever we see on telly.
i occasionally have some real problems with allergies. and i see these ads on tv, for various drugs. and they talk of how their drugs blocks x or helps y and histamine this and allergen that. i dunno what any of it is, or why it is better than anything. i dunno loratadine from diphenhydramine. thats is why i have a doctor. so to merck, or pfizer, or whoever, i appreciate them running the ad during lost. somebody has to pay for the underwater hatch set, and jorge garcia's cheeseburger bills. but as far as what they are advertising, i am not qualified to say whether it would work for me or not, so i ignore it. problem solved. no regulation needed. it doesnt hurt me that they run ads, it helps me.
The price of those allergy medicines you get is substantially higher because of that advertisement... thus, you are hurt by it & if it weren't for them, I'm quite sure that Lost could find someone else to buy their advertisement time.
Not to change the subject here but I find it interesting that some talk about big scary corporations and yet totally ignore what I would consider the biggest scariest corporation of all. The federal government, you would think that these people would be paranoid of the government because its a bigger problem than anything in the private sector.
In fact, I do own the pharmaceutical companies . . . just not enough to control them. Plenty enough to speak my mind, though, and vote my proxies. Ask him what he really thinks next time. My guess is that he liked it better before his patients that aren't omniscient like you started diagnosing themselves via TV. Most prefer the old days when the drug company reps would just give them tons of goodies, junkets to the Riviera, and samples out the wazoo along with lofty $$$ for participating in their "clinical studies".
i can just buy the brand that doesnt advertise. or not buy any at all. or buy generic. and the more companies out there advertising the better, more competition, more money for better writers to work on lost, better plots, more happiness for me. i do not think the 2 minutes of extra talking docs might have to do is cause for censoring anyone. there should be an incredible horror of some sort involved before you shut anyone up.
This is not an ideal world. There aren't infinite options & competitors. Companies have patents and the product they sell is exclusively theirs. I think this is a source of much of our disagreements. You wish we were in a completely capitalist society, and thus your view on everything is that is the way it should be. The truth of the matter is that this isn't a completely capitalist society and never will be. Realistic options must take this into account.
in terms of my allergy problems, this isnt the case, i buy store brand for next to nothing, it works fine. patents expire or whatever. i dunno exactly how it works. this reminds me of another fabulously interesting topic, intellectual property. i actually believe that basically every piece of copyrighted information should be stolen as much as possible, except for drug patents. i realize not every drug has a generic equivalent, but i also realize that those drugs are private property and if i want them i will pay what they are asking, regardless of why they are asking. if we really care about the fate of mankind (i dont), then we should always be doing everything we can to get as close to pure capitalism as possible.
Why not drug patents? The theory behind copyrighting is that it provides incentive to invest in R&D and invent things. If people are just going to steal your ideas, why bother with it? I'm actually going to disagree with you here. Corporations naturally have an upper hand in the relationship to buyers. Gov't regulation helps level the playing field. For instance, monopolies are bad for the economy. Thus, I don't mind seeing the government break them up.
